Incuded in the outreach service projects of the Carolina Pine Quilters is sewing pillowcases for local health care organizations. I decided to try and learned how to make French seams, too. I love YouTube!

Lessons learned:

Always buy more material than you need.

Fabrics that are listed in the same collection don't always work well together.

Fabrics that are listed in the same collection are not all the same width, regardless of the width listed.

I finished my first quilt. Finally! I was chatting with my hair stylist and mentioned I had just taken an introductory class at Joann's. She told me one of her clients was a quilter and was going to offer a class soon. I took the class, along with two other lovely women, June 18-22. Jean R is a fantastic teacher, very skilled, and extremely patient. I finished the top, and Jean helped me assemble the layers before I did a simple "stich in the ditch" quilting on it. She also taught me how to attach the binding. It took me until last night to actually finish the binding. It required hand work that I had never done before. (One of my weaknesses is actually starting things, especially when they are a new skill.) I apologize to Jean for not following her guidelines when selecting the fabrics. Once the quilt was done, I understood how my choices affected the look of the rail. I have a lot to learn.

I had purchased some woven labels that I thought would be cute to add to my quilts, because I don't think they are worthy of real quilt labels yet. I decided it would be nice to hand add a year. So, I found my Micron 08 that I had bought especially for quilts, and it bled. Apparently, the ink behaves differently on quilting cotton than it does on rayon taffeta. The fibers are very fine and move the ink along beautifully. Now it was a challenge! It really wanted to add the year. I tried two Sharpie permanent markers, fine and ultra fine; a Sharpie Rub-a-Dub laundry marker, and a Staples Opti-flow. They all bled.

I grabbed some ballpoint pens. They did not bleed. I pulled out some black ballpoint pen refills from Levenger and tried the medium, bold, and an anti-gravity one. I wanted to see how they would hold up being washed, so I threw the label in with a load of laundry after heat setting the inks with an iron. The anti-gravity ink turned blue, but the other two stayed black and did not wash away. I went with the medium one. ​

My intention was to donate this quilt to the Children's Place here in Aiken, but Ted says I should keep it, because it is my first quilt. If I do, I will make another one to give away. I haven't decided yet. I chose the colors in this one for a little boy, not for me.

By the way, Jean and I belong to the same guild, the Carolina Pine Quilters, and I took a second class with her. We made a wall hanging. When I get it done, I'll share it with you. Here's a teaser. I, again, did not follow her color suggestions. Big mistake.